Star Wars - Kenobi

for many people, the smaller struggles are just as important to them as our larger ones are to us. It was a good lesson for me to learn.
    But it has to end there.
    So I’m strictly confining my travels to my mission. I checked on the boy earlier this week; the farm seems fine. I managed to steer clear of Owen Lars this time. The man doesn’t like me at all.
    And I’m going to keep working on the house. I have to do something about this coolant unit, which I think was built in the time of Arca Jeth. But don’t worry—there are other stores on Tatooine besides the Claim. Not many, but they exist …

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
    “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNIE!”
    Annileen waved back from the window of the speeder truck. “Thanks!”
    There wasn’t any point in telling the farmhand that her birthday was still a day away. Everyone who’d visited the Claim since the night before had heard the reason for her journey. And harvest workers on three previous hillsides had already yelled the same greeting to her, all of them excited for her.
    Annileen was excited, too. Dressed nicely, she was heading to Mos Eisley, her daughter in the passenger seat and son in back—and none of them had argued yet at all. It was a birthday miracle.
    They were in the LiteVan II today. Dannar had brought the retired SoroSuub model back into service the year they married, and it still handled most of the heavy work for the Claim. Orrin had needed his USV-5 landspeeder back for some reason, but Annileen didn’t mind. She was still reeling, not quite believing the contents of the envelope Orrin had given her. Jabe and Kallie were discussing it in the darkened cab, now.
    “I’ve been telling you Orrin’s a great guy,” Jabe said.
    “I guess I was wrong,” Kallie said. His older sister, also cleaned up in colorful clothes from off the rack, read from the gold-colored slip in light from the window. “To Annie. This certificate good for …
    “ … Ben!”
    Annileen glanced at her daughter, startled. What?”
    “There!” Kallie said, lowering the document and pointing out her window. “To the right! Ben Kenobi!”
    Annileen braked and banked the massive machine at the same time. Sure enough, Ben and Rooh came into her field of view.
    It was a comical sight, one that reminded her of her first visit to his place, and the angry bantha calf. Ben was on his hands and knees in the middle of a blasted plain, trying to talk to Rooh. The eopie was lying on her belly in the sand, legs folded underneath as she chewed on a lonely patch of desert foliage. Her harness was connected to a makeshift sledge, upon which sat a heavy and ancient coolant pump.
    Annileen pulled the LiteVan up alongside. “Going somewhere?” she asked.
    “That was the original idea,” Ben said. “It isn’t working out.”
    Annileen stopped the engine. Kallie went for her door latch. Jabe leaned over the front seat, aggravated. “Not again, Mom. This guy —”
    “Helped us, and needs help now,” Annileen said. “You just sit here and stay out of the suns.”
    When Annileen climbed out of the vehicle and onto the desert floor, Kallie was already there, trying her best to get her festive red outfit into Ben’s field of view. But the cloaked man’s attention remained on his eopie.
    “Rooh just stopped,” Ben said. “She’s eating this—whatever it is.”
    “It’s desert sage,” Annileen said.
    “I didn’t think anything grew here.”
    “Something grows everywhere.” Annileen knelt next to him and stroked the lackadaisical eopie’s snout. “There, girl. It’s all right.”
    Seemingly discomfited by Annileen’s proximity, Ben stood up and gestured to the cargo. “I can’t seem to get her to move. I keep thinking I’ve attached the sledge wrong.”
    “No, it’s fine,” Annileen said.
    “Then she’s just objecting to carrying extra weight,” Ben said, standing over the prone animal.
    “That’s for sure,” Kallie said. She tried to stifle a chuckle, and failed. Annileen gestured for her to pipe down, but found herself smiling, too.
    Ben stared at them, mildly flustered. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”
    “No, you’re getting something,” Annileen said, kneeling beside the animal and touching her abdomen. “In a couple of days, it looks like.”
    “You can’t mean …” Ben looked at Rooh’s midsection, flabbergasted. “Pregnant?” He stammered. “That’s simply not possible. I only have one eopie!”
    “Not for long,” Kallie